I recently volunteered to coach my 5-year-old son’s soccer team. It has sure been a delightful eye-opener for me. There is something quite enchanting about being in the middle of enthusiastic, unfiltered 5-year-olds gathered on a playing field to learn the beautiful game. Their excited energy is truly infectious.

As you can imagine, I quickly learned a group of 5-year-olds are easily distracted and have a short attention span to my instructions. Keeping their attention is sometimes challenging.

Teaching and practicing simple drills together has been anything but simple.

I know about coaching adults. At work, I’m a coach. A 360 Energy Coach.  I asked myself, “David, what do you know from energy coaching that might be relevant for helping these young players?”

In energy coaching, my first requirement is to engage with senior management. For coaching 5-year-olds, the senior managers would be the parents. So, I spoke with the parents standing on the sidelines. I asked them to work with me in teaching their youngsters to learn the drills. Kids and parents, working together on doing drills – my soccer coaching job just became a whole lot easier and satisfying. The experience was better for the kids. They can now also practice these skills at home. Being at soccer practice became way more fun and meaningful for the parents.

That experience on my son’s soccer field mirrored my experience in the workplace. Getting a cross-functional team working together on improving corporate energy performance does wonders for an organization. It’s fun. Team members learn new skills. Better relationships are built.

Whether a kids soccer team or a corporate energy program. Whatever the circumstance, first make sure the senior managers are engaged.